


The Five Exceptions of Bahtor

by penitence_road



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Content Warning: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Questioning the Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penitence_road/pseuds/penitence_road
Summary: A magical girl finds out the truth from the very beginning.  She and her companion argue the facts: do exceptions prove rules or disprove them?
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	The Five Exceptions of Bahtor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rokosourobouros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokosourobouros/gifts).



> Other content notes: discussion of gender roles, a brief reference to gender dysphoria, and magical cures for disability.

The smell of baking bread wafts through the house, dotted here and there with the sharpness of rosemary. From the forge, the steady clanging of Father’s hammer begins to slow. The wool fibers on her worktable have depleted from heaps of white to wisps too small to see, while the mass on her spindle has grown full and round. 

“It’s nearing dinner, I think,” Simone says from the chair by the window, the sound of knitting needles falling still. 

“Will you and Mother need help setting anything out?” Perrine sets a hand on the wheel to still it even as she asks the question, anticipating the answer from her sister’s pause. 

“…No. You finish what you were doing.” Simone tries to sound gentle, even solicitous, but her inflection falls flat. Another moment of silence follows the words, a weight in the air of something on the cusp of being said, and then the rustle of skirts accompanies Simone as she turns and leaves the room. 

Another day, Perrine might argue—what she’s doing is already nearly done; she can pick it up again after the meal; she can at least go fetch Father. Today, she only listens to the sound of Simone sighing in the room outside, then the tapping of her footsteps pacing towards the kitchen. 

Perrine slides the last of the wool fiber from her fingers to her worktable then sits up straighter in her chair. 

“Bahtor,” she says aloud, if only to hear the steadiness in her voice. “I’m ready now.” 

_I thought you might be_ , comes the answer in her mind. A light weight lands on the floor near the window, padding across the wood towards her. _Then, Perrine du Randt, tell me your wish, so that you may join me in the fight._

She takes a breath, steadies herself, and, “—I wish to understand the words people refuse me.”

Bahtor pauses—such a familiar companion, that little beat of silence! 

“Did you not tell me I could help you fight witches even should I not wish to cure my eyes?” she reminds him, fighting a smile even as her fingers curl in on themselves with apprehension. 

_I did, and you can._ The weight of one paw falls against her leg as he sits up next to her. _I just didn’t think it would be the choice you would make!_

“I know. It’s only that—it came to me that I’ve never been able to see peoples’ faces clearly. So what do I think to learn from suddenly being able to? Only seeing would not be knowing, and that is what I _want—_ the knowing. No more guessing.”

 _It’s good that you’re forward-thinking. It will help you in the days ahead._ He hops up into her lap and she closes her arms around him, running one hand over his cool fur, dark against the paleness of her skirts. 

She expects him to say more, but instead of his words spilling liquid clear into her mind, pain seizes through her chest. She folds forward instantly, clutching her hands through his fur and locking her jaw shut around a scream, swallowing it down into just a strained whimper. 

Some part of Bahtor moves within her like a hand rummaging through a drawer, then he hums, a satisfied purr, as inside her chest something breaks away, the hurt of it rebounding and fading like an echo. 

_Hold out your hands, Perrine, and feel the shape of your future._

She gropes to follow the instruction and as her fingers close on something cool and hard, small enough to fit entirely in the palm of her hand, she hears—

"I only wish there were more we could do for her.” Simone’s voice comes as a sudden burst of sound against the roaring in Perrine’s ears. She fixes her attention on it, chest heaving, and then—

Her sense of self meets with another’s, shocking, like stepping out of bed and finding grass beneath her feet. All at once, the shape of her mind suits her poorly, sliding into a foreign space as if into ill-fitting clothes. 

Concern, regret, apprehension—not _her_ emotions, but recognizable all the same, and she can _see_ with impossible clarity and a whirl of hues she’s never imagined, matched to recognitions as mundane as “the kitchen table,” “strawberries from the market,” and, “Mother’s eyes.” 

“We already do everything a soul could do,” says her mother’s voice, gentle. “Has she complained of something?”

“Of course not; when does she ever?” Simone sighs, the feeling vibrating in Perrine’s abdomen. _Would that she complained! Then at least I might find something to_ try. The thoughts hang in Perrine’s mind, hang in the distance between them, and beneath the words, low and insistent, a pulse of inarticulate _love her—help her—lift her—love her—_

“Then don’t court trouble, my hen,” Mother responds. She chucks a flour-dusted hand beneath Simone’s chin and Simone pulls back, annoyance spiking up as white powder drops down onto her collarbone. Darkness spills back across Perrine’s vision, the connection fraying like unraveling thread.

She slides herself out of the chair and to the floor, then allows herself to fall backwards into a sprawl, the force of relief tugging her mouth into a smile. _She doesn’t hate me,_ she thinks, giddy with relief _._ _Praise be, she doesn’t hate me._

_Telepathy, then? That’s within expected parameters, I suppose._

Perrine blinks and turns her face towards Bahtor. She opens her mouth to ask what he means, and even as she arranges the question on her tongue, the sensation of it surges forward— _I wish to understand_ —and she plunges into Bahtor’s mind and it is cold and empty and all at once she’s drowning in all the secrets that make up his truth. 

* * *

“Why only girls? Are we truly fuller of feeling than boys are?” she asks, holding her hands out to the flames, which dance in her newly-restored vision. The way to fight witches without wishing to cure her eyes, it turned out, was as simple as using her magic to cure them regardless—though in the end, reading the intentions of witches proved more reliable than relying on her still-unfamiliar sense of sight.

 _Saying you have more feelings is oversimplifying things,_ Bahtor answers, tail lazily waving back and forth. _Of course, different societies handle things differently, but in general, it is more expected of girls to be subject to their emotions, while boys are taught to master theirs. That’s not to say it always works out like that, but…_

A figure stalks through hallways in Bahtor’s mind, a youth with short, dark hair and stormy features, a flush of anger high in their cheeks. 

“What else aren’t you saying?” Perrine asks. “Who is—” she pauses, closing her eyes.

_Wilhelma?_

“What is it?” a voice says from the edge of the woods and their guide steps into the circle of firelight. 

Dressed in traveling clothes—a plain dress with its collar closed up against the chill, a fur-lined cape folded back over her shoulders—Wilhelma tilts her head and shifts the load of branches in her arms over to one elbow. She wears her hair, the same warm shade as the tree trunks around them, pinned up beneath a thin white cap and veil. 

_Perrine was only asking about how you and I met._

The shape of her face is different from the youth in Bahtor’s mind, softer and more rounded, but, Perrine realizes, the eyes are the same—a deep, penetrating color Perrine hasn’t yet learned the name for. 

“I see,” she says, lips pursing. “Well, I can spare a few words, so long as we talk about something else after.” She drops her burden without fanfare and straightens up to face Perrine again. “My father wanted a son,” she states, simple and matter-of-fact for all that her thoughts simmer defiance. “And for fourteen years he thought he had one.” 

The awareness pulses in her, self and body estranged. Perrine’s eyebrows knit at a brief, nauseating sense of her own weight in misdistribution and she hurriedly pulls back from the other girl’s mind.

“And then?” she asks.

“And then I met Bahtor,” Wilhelma answers, shooting the creature a small smile, which he answers with a flick of his ears and a tilt of his head. 

_My kind have the bodies we need to have. Giving Wilhelma the body she was meant for was one of the simplest wishes I’ve ever granted._

“After that, I left home. I would never have been able to stay.” 

_In most societies, humans place different expectations on boys than they do on girls._ Bahtor hops up onto Wilhelma’s shoulders, draping himself comfortably around her neck and turning his head into her fingers as she reaches up to rub his ears. _It is easier for girls to go unnoticed. Harder for boys—_

“Harder for boys to sneak themselves away to fight witches when they’re being raised to lead families,” Wilhelma fills in, reclaiming the staff she’d left propped up against a tree and leaning her weight into it. “But could be he's still looking for me—my father, I mean. So I don’t try to claim a city like the others—I make my domain of the roads. No shortage of witches in the wilds, if you know where to look, and a good deal less competition.”

The soul gem embedded in her ring gleams in the firelight, the color of a single blade of grass peeking up through a bed of snow. 

Perrine nods, swallowing back her fears for the future and forcing a smile.

* * *

“Is there truly no way to return a witch to what she was?” 

Light slants through plate glass windows stained red by the cover of autumn leaves. Wide worktables line the room, their surfaces littered with glass vials and more complex devices Perrine doesn’t recognize, all nested bulbs and thin protrusions of metal and glass. One corner houses an oven, its brick hood melting into a chimney that runs up the wall and away. Standing on the back wall is an ornate chest of drawers, the larger rows of drawers at the bottom giving way to smaller compartments spiraling around a central open shelf. A circle inscribed in chalk covers several arm's lengths of space on the floor, divided and subdivided by lines and curves demarking something like a star, peppered with writing in a language she has no hope of reading. 

Bahtor hops up onto a table, surveying the room. In his memories, Perrine catches glimpses of black hair and sun-dark skin—a woman, older than most of the girls she sees in his mind, stubbornness in the cant of her jaw and her narrowed eyes—and feels an echo of drowsy, late afternoon heat. 

_Well, the simplest way would be to use a wish for it, but that only trades one witch for another, doesn’t it?_

“The simplest way?” Perrine rounds on Bahtor, fixing him with a stare. “So there is a more difficult way?”

 _I have seen it done once,_ the creature concedes, then puts his head to one side. Through his eyes, Perrine sees a soul gem sitting at the center of the chalk circle, glowing the color of sunshine, as clear and bright as the day Bahtor coaxed it into existence. _But the cost is so high, I can’t say I would ever recommend it._

He points to the chest of drawers with his tail before she can even ask. Perrine hesitates, then slowly walks over. The room seems to grow more shadowed as she approaches, the windows gone dark and the warmth bled away. 

_The first full-length drawer,_ Bahtor prompts, all helpfulness. The metal handle feels like ice under her fingers. She takes a steadying breath and pulls it out. 

Smears of color to the left, a block of shadow to the right, and Perrine hears her own choked shriek as if muffled through layers of cloth. She falls gracelessly, hands pressing to her mouth, and can’t even look at Bahtor as he springs up to the top of the furniture and surveys the neat rows of soul gems and grief seeds set into place in the open drawer. She closes her eyes, tries to close her mind, but, pitiless, Bahtor’s voice finds her again in the dark. 

_Agostina Girelli killed her sister’s witch four times before she found an alchemic array that worked. All that time and effort, all the sacrifice, all the magic spent, and in the end, it still wasn't sustainable. Her sister found out what Agostina did to get her back and fell again right away._

Perrine hears the screaming and the sobbing, some part of it her own. “Stop,” she whispers. “No more.” 

_You did ask,_ Bahtor rebukes, and finishes, _the fifth time she fought her sister’s witch, she finally lost. The nature of Lucia’s despair had changed, which meant the form taken by her witch was different as well. Agostina hadn’t planned for that._

Blood in the circle of chalk, and the lab-turned-labyrinth teems with disembodied eyes in impossible hues, cascading voices overlapping and running together into one torrential bellow of rage. 

_You have to agree it is much too inefficient to be feasible,_ pipes Bahtor, high and sweet as a flute against the roaring of the witch. 

* * *

“Has no one ever tried to just—leave? Outrun you, outrun all of it? We have no compulsion to fight witches, and if we aren't using our magic, then we have no need of grief seeds to cleanse our soul gems. Has no one ever just resolved that they've done enough and stopped?”

“I tried that,” answers a girl’s voice, pinched and low. Perrine opens her eyes to look up at the speaker and finds a haggard face framed by lank, unbound blonde hair. Unlike Wilhelma in her sturdy, well-mended frock, this girl looks poorly prepared for the road, her broad linen sleeves gray and fraying, her long skirts rent and stained at the hems, her shoes wearing thin around the hard curve of her heels.

“They chase you,” the girl goes on, blue eyes fixed on Bahtor, her voice as flat and unreadable to Perrine’s ears as faces had once been to her eyes. “They do things to your soul gem, make you hurt inside. Or they lead things to you.” She turns the glassy-eyed stare up to Perrine. “My newest hunter—is that what you are?” 

“Never!” Perrine waves her hands in denial. “I hate what they do to us!” She shoots a sharp glance down at Bahtor, who flicks his tail, watching the two of them. “I’m only—traveling. Searching for answers.”

“He allows you this, instead of the fight against witches?” the girl presses. A knife hangs at her belt, large and plain, not in the slightest magically enhanced, but chipped and dull with use. Perrine tries not to stare at it, at the miasma that clings to it in her mind’s eye. 

_We fight those as they come up,_ Bahtor answers. _We’re just passing through for now, Rahel._

The girl stares at them for another long moment before bowing her head and speaking again. “Fine. Then this is what I know: your soul gem muddies very slowly so long as you aren't using magic. If you still intend to fight, fight with normal weapons, if you can. And don’t let them tell you you must fight every time you enter a labyrinth. Witches won’t want you there, but many of them will allow you escape if you try. Take your time, observe them, and then return with a plan.” 

She rolls her head back, staring up through bare tree branches, her voice still blank, arms limp at her sides. 

“Find areas where witches dwell but magical girls don’t wish to. Places where water is bad or food is scarce. Or where people are warring, or unkind. There's little competition for such territories.” 

_What happened to her?_ Perrine can’t stop the question as the girl’s litany goes on. _What did she mean, that you hurt her inside?_

_Rahel doesn’t live very much in her body anymore. She is often ill, and usually tired. She won’t show it to you, but her soul gem is always muddy now. She only fights witches when she absolutely has to, you see._

_And the rest?_

_We incubators have been watching over you magical girls since before your history began. When someone runs away from their bargain, the first thing we’re to do is remind them of the hardships they allow others to face in their place._

She picks it out of his mind in flashes—his paw on a mottled cobalt gem, holding the memory of some other girl’s pain up to Rahel like a reflection, with Bahtor nothing but the silvered glass conduit.

“What are the two of you talking about?” Rahel’s voice cracks between the two of them, splintering the memory into incoherence. “Don’t think I've forgotten the look of silent speech.”

Perrine refocuses on the present, looking with dismay at the suspicion darkening Rahel’s features. 

“It’s nothing,” she says, too hurriedly, the same tones she and Simone used with each other, and tries to smile. 

“I have done enough,” Rahel says unevenly. “Did he tell you my wish?” 

Perrine shakes her head, unspeaking.

“I wanted my father to return safely from the war. That was all. One man’s life only, and he might have lived even without my wish. And for that I had to fight and kill witches for years—and there is no end!” The girl takes an unsteady step closer to Bahtor, glaring at him, though her words are still aimed at Perrine. “I asked him before I ran away, how long must I do this? When is the wish paid?” 

_The terms of the agreement—_ Bahtor begins, tone perfectly reasonable. 

“The agreement is unfair!” With a quick, dull gleam, the knife is in Rahel’s hands, and all the breath leaves Perrine’s lungs. She steps between Rahel and Bahtor, hands out. 

“Please, listen—I was only trying to find answers; we aren't here to—”

“He’ll be perfectly hale on the end of my knife,” the girl spits. “If freedom were so easy as killing him, he'd be a dozen times dead over again. He always returns.”

 _Is that—true?_ Perrine sees the answer in Bahtor’s mind even as she asks the question, a memory of cognizance slipping from body to body with no more care than a change of gloves. “All the same,” she says aloud, “Please don’t—”

“If you still want answers, then ask them once I no longer have to _look_ at him. Get out of my way—!” Rahel pushes her, sharply, and Perrine lands on unforgiving soil, packed cold and hard in the middle of winter. Something snaps at her side and there’s a sudden clinking sound as a pouch fastened at her waist scatters its contents to the bitter air. 

For a horrible moment, silence falls, even Rahel’s ragged breathing frozen mid-gasp as all eyes turn to Agostina’s collection, soul gems and grief seeds gleaming against the snow like so many spilled beads.

 _You should get your blindfold on._ Bahtor’s voice, bland and expectant. _It’s time._

Perrine looks up into the other girl’s white face and finds the future written there in the contortions of despair and rage.

* * *

“It’s absurd to say that your despair weighs equals to the hope you wished for! The way things happened for Rahel? There is no balance there, no—no equivalence!” Tears have dampened her blindfold, the weight of Rahel’s grief seed cold in her hands. 

_It’s only a rule of thumb,_ Bahtor says. _A guideline for our work, so we generally know what to expect._

Snow soaks slowly through her leggings and Perrine wraps her arms around herself, throat still hot and tight. She makes no move to unbind the sash of cloth over her eyes—even with the fight over, the treacherous shapes of the labyrinth dissolved, the world is still too cruel and bright to see with open eyes and open mind both.

 _This all must be getting to you. Normally, you catch me on phrasing like that._ Bahtor pads closer, and then the soft length of him presses past her leg like a cat wanting to be fed. His mind tugs at hers like wind through an open door, gentle but inexorable. _Listen—now that you’ve seen all these unusual cases, won’t you let me share one more? The most amazing refutation of despair I’ve ever seen?_

 _I don’t trust you,_ she answers, small and miserable, and feels his belly rise and fall on his sigh. 

_I admit I don’t fully understand “trust.” But you have asked so many questions, and that’s admirable. Asking questions is how we find answers. All of your questions have been leading to one_ huge _question, trying to come at it from different angles, trying to find words that will encompass the whole. Let me try to pose it for you: “Why are witches the only final outcome of the evolution of a magical girl?”_

_And the answer is, “They aren’t.”_

Perrine raises her head. 

* * *

_This was in Catalonia,_ Bahtor tells her, sitting at her side, tail waving in a way that she might call happy, if she didn’t know better. He doesn’t feel happiness, or grief, or really anything very much, but right now, she can sense something like satisfaction, a cool, detached ripple of pleasure. _My superiors sometimes tell me that I take on too many odd cases, expend too much energy on uncertain factors. But I say uncertain factors are only uncertain until you run their equations._

They stand atop a tall building, marked as a church by the cross on the opposite spire. A harvest moon casts the streets below in parchment yellow, the silhouettes of buildings scrawled across the bricks like so many inked drawings. A girl in a long, tight-waisted coat balances easily at the edge of the sloping roof, her face stony as she watches the man next to her stagger forward and throw himself off the ledge into empty space. As Bahtor hops over to take the vacated spot and join her in her observation, the girl’s eyes narrow.

“He wronged me,” she says aloud. “Drove my family from our house, sold away everything we didn't take. I didn’t want what we had back—we’d only lose it to the next person to come waving a prize under my father’s nose. I just wanted that man to disappear.”

_Perrine du Randt, this is Mariona Alcàntara._

The girl slants a look back at her without turning, face half-obscured by the thick braid over her shoulder. A red scarf coils around her neck, the ends dangling nearly to her knees. 

“Leave me alone. I have work to do,” is all she says before she likewise leaps from her perch. Before Perrine even has time to cry out, the twin tails of Mariona’s scarf snap out in the breeze—for just that moment, the girl has crimson cloth wings. 

_She was a very hard worker,_ Bahtor says as the scenery blurs and shifts. _Persistent, if not strong, and she had the best sense for witches of any magical girl I’ve known. As well she might have—her wish itself was a curse! I thought it was an even chance she’d become a witch as soon as her soul gem formed._

 _But it all seemed to be good for her, somehow,_ he goes on as Perrine reluctantly steps forward to join him. _She drifted away from her family, but it wasn’t long before she met someone else._

The girl lands in what must be a labyrinth, lands so hard she cracks the surface of the animated mural beneath her feet—the tiles shiver violently through a whirl of colors before their pattern fades to white and the labyrinth flickers out of existence. Mariona straightens and looks up, her scowl of concentration cleared away before a smile, and runs to join another girl her age, lifting her into a delighted spin before she lets her transformation go. Perrine watches, full of dread, as the two dart into the shadows hand in hand. 

_Forgive me for not being able to tell you the other girl’s name. Mariona never let me contract me with her, so I never committed it to memory._

The other girl’s face _is_ less distinct, Perrine sees as she watches the two sitting together atop a grassy hill in what must be a park, their shoulders pressed close even in bright sunlight, the city spreading away in the distance below them. 

_But it wasn’t only magical battles Mariona needed to worry about. Politics were happening, out there in the world, and danger approaching them as a result. Catalonia was raising arms. She decided to ask the girl to run away with her._

“You didn’t try to stop her?”

 _Remember what Wilhelma told you?_ Bahtor scratches at his ear, smile fixed on his face. _There are witches to be found in places other than cities, though they wouldn’t be as strong as the handmaidens of war._ _But it was clear by then that something interesting was going to happen with Mariona. Her soul gem darkened when she fought witches, of course, but grief seeds went so much farther with her._

Another battle finished, and Mariona’s gem pressed to a grief seed’s black frame brightens from murky red to a vibrant rose shade, growing paler still at the heart of the stone. 

_She had only one fear—would her most important person be willing to part from her family? The girl had always avoided Mariona’s questions about them. But time was growing short, and armies drawing near, so she resolved to ask._

The next moment finds the two sitting atop another roof, their faces shaded by a trellis of vines winding overhead. Amidst the flowers, brown and white feathers flick; small birds watch the scene below with bright black eyes. 

_The answer that came first was yes—the girl was willing to leave with her._

The two figures embrace, relief and joy reflecting in Mariona’s face as she holds her—friend? Perrine has begun to doubt the sufficiency of the word—close. 

_The next answer, she never expected. When she asked, “But what of your family?” the girl finally admitted that she had none—her father was dead, almost half a year gone._ A shadow falls sharply across the stone, landing in a broken heap before the two girls—a familiar silhouette, and Mariona pulls back, face full of shock. 

Perrine’s hand flies to her chest. “He was—!”

 _He had leapt from the top of the cathedral,_ Bahtor confirms _. A suicide, she had been told. And because of his death, she found herself, for the first time, free—it seemed that he was no kinder to his own kin than he had been to anyone else’s, including Mariona’s._

The girl tilts her head and reaches up to cup her hand around Mariona’s cheek. Her lips move around an unheard question, then ease into a smile, a reassurance. She tucks herself into Mariona’s arms, hugging the other girl’s waist. Mariona embraces her in return, eyes still wide—and then the smile begins to steal across her face as the realization sinks in. 

_The revenge that Mariona wished for rebounded into hope—in wishing a death into the world, she also set free the love of her life._

Mariona begins to laugh and on her finger, the red chip of stone in her ring begins to glow. Brighter and brighter, and when Mariona ducks down to press a kiss to the other girl’s lips, the thin band abruptly dissolves from her hand. With neither girl paying it any mind, it returns to its true form, hovering in the air above them, scintillant with its own inner radiance.

_The curse that I thought would turn her into a witch—_

The kiss deepens, Mariona’s lover’s hands finding their way up into the dark waves of her hair—

—and the soul gem shatters into light.

Perrine blinks away an afterimage in the shape of a latticework seed, thin and fine and golden. She finds herself standing in the middle of a market, surrounded by throngs of people, their faces drawn and gaunt, intermittent shouted demands rising harsh above the bustle. So many minds around hers press in, thrumming with anxiety, and for a moment Perrine can only clutch at her head, breath caught in her throat. 

And then she hears it—a thin, silvery voice, singing at the edge of hearing. A carpet of grass snakes over the stamped-down earth, dotted with pale flowers. A—labyrinth?

 _It’s something like a labyrinth, yes._ Bahtor weaves out from between the multitude of legs and hops up onto her shoulders; she lets him, too distracted to push him away. 

Humans can’t see labyrinths, of course, but all the same, the effect is immediate. People perk up, looking all once happier and more hopeful; someone in the crowd picks up the line of the song, and soon the walls ring with it, a hymn praising the bounties of God and grace. 

_Where she passes, people grow more hopeful,_ Bahtor says, pressing against the back of her neck. _They recover more quickly from sickness and injury. They make up from fights they were having that they couldn’t see a way through before._

Around them, the market begins to fade, obscured by a lambent white fog. A breeze finds its way to her, warm as late spring. 

_Everything witches do, she does in reverse. I call her the fairy godmother. Isn’t she astounding? You see, at the very edges of probability, given long enough, we find cases like this. So, who knows what else may come of our bargains in the future?_

Away in the fog, movement—sinuous, graceful, a shape all of blue sashes and white-feathered wings, and the tears standing in Perrine’s eyes are, for the first time since she made her wish, joyful ones.

“So there is a way,” she manages. Hills roll out beneath her, their surfaces irregularly broken by carved, pale gray stonework—old buildings being reclaimed by the grassy seas. 

_A way?_ All at once, the chilly rationality of Bahtor’s mind brings her back to the crux of things. 

“She didn’t become a witch—that means not everyone must! It isn’t inevitable!” She lifts Bahtor from her shoulders and holds him out at arm's length. 

_You would encourage people to make wishes of ill-tidings?_ Bahtor squirms until she lets him go, then sits down to face her, a small dark-furred beast perfectly at home in the grass. _Perrine, you must know Mariona Alcàntara was an exception._

“But that's at least _something_ —and what she became, the hope that she brings people; we could bring magical girls to her, like—like a pilgrimage. She could aid them.” 

_Mm. She could, probably. It is useful to know of her presence, at least._

“It’s too late for Agostina and Rahel, but not for Wilhelma!” Perrine crouches down, excitement taking root in her chest. “Let us tell her! On our way back, we can find her and let her know!”

_We could—if we were going back. But the truth is, we never left._

“…What?”

* * *

In front of her, Perrine’s own body lies splayed on the floor of her and Simone’s bedroom. Her clouded eyes stare up at nothing, wide and blank, her soul gem twinkling cloud-spun white in her limp hand. 

Bahtor stands up. He pads delicately over to lay one small black paw against the gold lattice of her gem and the weight of his mind brings Perrine to her knees. 

_What?_ she tries to ask again, the question numb in her mouth, stillborn. Behind her, the godmother ( _Mariona_ ) winds smooth blue silk around her shoulders. Bright serenity sweeps through her like the warmth of dawn.

Bahtor wraps his tail around her soul gem, lifting it from her unmoving palm, then looks up at her, tilting his head and blinking. 

All _minds can become labyrinths, Perrine. Before you came into mine, I had no idea quite how true that really was, but I will definitely take it into account in the future!_ The red circle on his back lifts, the hollow of his—its—body shadowed and vacant within.

 _Wait,_ she tries to croak and the godmother’s dark fingers stroke her hair, whispering peace into her ear. On the ground, a tear gathers in one of her blank eyes and runs back into her hair. 

_It is a shame to waste energy like this,_ Bahtor goes on, her soul gem sliding and rolling across the surface of its thick tail, _but it happens sometimes. On a project as big as this one, it’s bound to. You have to understand, letting all of you know about the fairy godmother just wouldn’t be efficient. She would grind everything nearly to a halt! Just replicating entropy in the very system we established to overcome it._

_But no matter what, at least we learned something new. That could help prevent other problems in the future, so take heart: there is still some value in your wish._

Shadow familiars hop and flit over the lip of the window, their sweet chirping filling the air with birdsong. Outside, green fields roll in like a tide, swallowing up buildings Perrine never saw with clear vision. She can’t move. Her body is lying right in front of her and she can’t _move._

Bahtor stands, balancing her soul gem on its tail, and bows to her with deferentially closed eyes. _Thank you for your contribution to the universe, Perrine du Randt. I promise that we will take good care of your soul gem until we find a use for it._

 _Stop!_ she screams, putting all her strength behind it—and even Bahtor, strong of mind as it is, winces. But her soul gem is already winking in the air, arcing, falling, and vanishing into its body. 

Her vision cuts out, snapping to the old familiar black. 

Cradled in only the memory of the godmother’s wings, Perrine’s thoughts begin to slow and blur. 

Slowly, silently, everything infuses with white.


End file.
